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All eyes will be on untested O-line Thursday night

PISCATAWAY — The offensive line that started preseason camp together for the Rutgers football team will line up when the Scarlet Knights play host to Norfolk State in their season opener Thursday night.

That doesn’t mean they’ll be the same five to finish the season, or even be the same pentad when Rutgers travels to play FIU next weekend.

Left tackle Desmond Stapleton, left guard Desmond Wynn, center Howard Barbieri, right guard Caleb Ruch and right tackle Art Forst have played in their share of games for the Scarlet Knights in recent seasons. But the one thing they haven’t done is line up on the offensive line at the same time together.

They will do so Thursday night.

“”Do I feel ready? Yeah,” Forst said. “”Have we answered any questions? No. You don’t answer anything until the end of the season. You look back and you evaluate it then.”

Forst is only a junior, but the Manasquan native is a senior stateman on the line with 21 starts the past two seasons. He insists Rutgers fans — and more importantly, quarterback Tom Savage — should have confidence that this untested unit is ready for anything that will be thrown at them this fall, starting with a Norfolk State defense that returns seven starters from a group ranking sixth in the Football Championship Subdivision last season.

“”Desmond Stapleton played left tackle for three years. Did he play in many games? No, but he’s been in the program for a long time,” Forst said. “”There’s nothing like game experience, but sometimes, people from the outside looking in make a bigger deal about it than it really is. The reality of it is the majority of your reps are in practice in this game. You play 13 games and you probably have 150 practice opportunities a year. Stapleton’s been here
three years.

“”You have Wynn, who started in some games last year and was learning in the spring. Then you have Howie, who knows everything you need to know about the offensive line. You have Caleb, who has started games through the last two seasons here. I think they’re people who know football, but the challenge for us is continuing to put it all together as we go through the season.”

That may be true on the eve of the season opener, but as Kyle Flood proved last season, he’s not immune to shuffling up his deck from week to week. Despite returning all five starters from the 2008 campaign, Rutgers’ highly-respected offensive line coach was never satisfied with last year’s unit, starting three different variations before settling on Anthony Davis, Forst, Ryan Blaszczyk, Barbieri and Kevin Haslam for the final six games.

Davis is gone, taking his All-Big East talents to the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, while Blaszczyk and Haslam, both of whom were multiple-year starters, graduated.

Replacing Davis is Stapleton, who has played in nine games the past two seasons but has never been a full-game starter. Since he serves as Savage’s blindside protector, more eyes will be on Stapleton than any other linemen Thursday night.

“”I don’t think you ever really think about rep lacing a player,” Flood said. “”You’re looking for players who can be productive in your system. You try to put the best players in position to be productive, but anything that’s been done in the past is exactly that, the past.

“”Even during the season each game is its own entity, with different problems and different matchups. Whether you were really good the week before or not, or really good the day before or not, it doesn’t really matter. You’re trying to find the best five guys to compete at the highest level everyday.”

Much of Flood’s optimism is the return of Barbieri, a fifth-year senior who has played all six spots along the offensive line, including tight end, in his Rutgers career. It’s no coincidence that the Middletown native was voted on by his teammates to captain Rutgers’ offensive this season.

“”I think the thing that’s most important is that we have great leadership from Howie,” Flood said. “”That’s going to help us as we go through this process as we try to get everything on track. To have a guy like that who can anchor the middle for you, it makes the transition a little smoother.

“”Obviously the left tackle position is the high-profile position in the NFL, but I think when you talk to offensive line coaches that center position is always the most important one to the coach. He controls the communication process.”

Flood, for one, won’t be comparing Stapleton to Davis, or Barbieri to Blaszczyk, or Forst to Haslam when his newly-installed unit line up togethe for the first time Thursday night.

“”Certainly we’d like to bring back five starters back every year, but that’s just not the reality of college football. I think we’re fortunate to have some good, young guys.”

About Keith Sargeant

Keith Sargeant is a graduate of Middlesex County College and Kean University. A Home News Tribune staff writer since August 1997, Keith has been covering Rutgers sports since 2000, serving as the Scarlet Knights' football beat writer since 2006.

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